County of Brant Ward 5 election candidate Ella Haley, hosted a meet-and-greet session at the Langford Schoolhouse on Saturday, February 21, 2026.
During the event, Haley sat down with the Brant Beacon to discuss her campaign and the various issues facing Ward 5 and the broader community.
Haley is one of five candidates seeking the Ward 5 seat, left open after former Councillor Christine Garneau resigned from her role in October 2025. Other candidates in the race include Greg Anderson, Jeff Johnson, Joanne Dorr and Mike Gatopoulos.
The by-election is set to take place exclusively online between March 9 and March 16, 2026. The successful candidate will join Councillor Brian Coleman in representing the communities of Cainsville, Langford, Onondaga, Middleport, Mount Pleasant, Scotland, Oakland and Oakhill, and is expected to be sworn in during the March 24 Council meeting.
The winner will serve for the remainder of the term until the next municipal election in the fall.
Haley, who was the Ward 5 runner up in the last municipal election back in 2022, is a fourth-generation resident of the County of Brant and grew up on a dairy and poultry family farm in Langford.
The former head kinesiologist at Wellesley Hospital in Toronto and retired assistant professor of sociology, Haley currently operates Hearts Content Organic Farm with her husband, Richard Tunstall.
She’s also a founding member of betterbrant.ca and the non-profit Langford Conservancy, where she operates the Langford Schoolhouse as a rural community hub.
Haley said she first got involved with community organizing around 1988, when the construction of Highway 403 split her family farm in two. She and her family rallied the community to successfully stop the building of a highway interchange.
“They wanted to cut it into pieces with an interchange and we didn’t want that, so that’s when I sort of really got involved in community organizing and ever since then, I’ve been involved,” she said.
Since then she’s gotten involved with various committee work including the Biggars Lane Liaison, Brant Parks and Recreation and the Environmental and Sustainability Policy Advisory. She’s also served on the board of directors for the Local National Farmers Union, Ecological Farmers of Ontario and local food and farming co-ops.
As far as her work specifically in Ward 5, Haley also helped oppose the Cainsville Ethanol Plant in 2005 and has been working with community members, the Grand River Conservation Authority and Ontario Trails since 1996 to help convert the former TH&B rail line to a recreational trail.
Speaking to why she’s decided to run for the Ward 5 seat again, Haley said it’s because she believes her past and current experience, as well as her passion for the community, could be of use.
“I’ve run for council a few times, but last time I was runner up and so I just thought, ‘I came that close, so if somebody’s stepped down, I’ll step up,’” she said. “I’m involved in the community all the time; we work on land-use issues, we do outreach to seniors, and we do outreach to migrant farm workers, and I find a lot of people are isolated and I feel like we need to build more community. I’ve also worked on Official Plan and land-use planning issues in this community and I believe I can bring that with me into this role. … I have relatives that have lived to be 107, so I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Known for often riding her bike and going door-to-door in Ward 5’s various communities, Haley said there are several issues that residents have brought up that she would like to start addressing, specifically with roads and speed limits.
“What I’m really trying to do is ask people what their issues are, and a key issue for people is the roads and speeding. Everybody is trying to find a shortcut to Toronto, and people are going too fast and tailgating,” she said. “In Onondaga, there are fathers who are getting quite emotional about how dangerous the roads are because they’ve got kids. People are telling me that they pay taxes, but they’re asking what they get for their taxes. …So that’s one thing I hear over and over, its traffic and speed.”
Residents in Oakhill are also concerned about the Brank Oak Park Road Extension, formerly the Brant South Access Road (BSAR) and now called the West Brant Access Road.
“That area around Colborne Street, Pleasant Ridge and Forced Road is really dangerous, and so you’ve got people who want the West Brant Access Road, but you’ve also got people in that same community who don’t want it because it will go right through their homes,” she said. “And I empathize with that because my family farm was cut in two.”
Haley explained that with those concerns in mind, she hopes to advocate for smart growth planning. Things like better public transit, getting a GO Transit to Brantford, and lowering the price of VIA Rail tickets and offering free parking at the Brantford train station, are all solutions that could help reduce the impact of having so many cars on the road.
Other various issues that she’s heard about have all been highlighted on her blog, some of which include: intercity public transit, the Biggars Lane Landfill, municipal drains, talk of Brantford amalgamating with the County, taxes, concerns about the Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement fund, and online voting.
As far as her vision and platform, Haley said she’s focused on:
- Protecting farmland and natural heritage areas
- Inclusive rural communities
- Meaningful reconciliation with First Nations
- Firm urban boundaries
- Affordable housing and affordable farmland
- Ecologically sustainable growth and public transit
- Safe roads for pedestrians, cyclists and cars
- Reducing waste and
- Divesting the Municipal Pension Fund from weapons and international law violations
The municipal election will take place on March 16. Voting begins online on March 9 at 10:00 a.m. and will continue through to March 16 at 8:00 p.m.
The County of Brant will send each voter a Voter Information Package with details.
For those who need assistance, in-person voting will also take place on March 16 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Cainsville Community Centre at 15 Ewart Ave. For those without the internet, voting can also be done at any of the County’s libraries.
You qualify to vote in the Ward 5 By-Election if:
- You are at least 18 years old on Election Day
- You are a Canadian citizen,
- If you are a resident of the County of Brant Ward 5
- If you rent or own property in the County of Brant, Ward 5 and
- You are not otherwise prohibited by law from voting.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
